Re: what creates a Packages{,.gz} etc. file ?

[Brian May <bam@debian.org>]

>>>>> "Andrew" == Andrew J Cosgriff <ajc@polydistortion.net> writes:

    Andrew> Pardon my ineptitude, but I'm trying to work out the
    Andrew> process of making a little test package directory to chuck
    Andrew> into apt's sources.list, and I'm unsure how one goes about
    Andrew> making the Packages, Packages.gz, Release (etc.) files
    Andrew> that need to live in there along with the actual package
    Andrew> files themselves.

    Andrew> I'm presuming there's a program to autogenerate them, but
    Andrew> having poked about with "apt-cache search" and at the new
    Andrew> maintainers guide et al, I've been unable to find the
    Andrew> package that does this (I suppose I missed something
    Andrew> obvious somewhere ?)

It depends what, exactly, you are after.

however, the usual way is

source archive ----> *.deb

using one of

debian/rules build
fakeroot debian/rules binary-arch
(not sure if the last parameter would always be that; sometimes it
might be binary-indep).

OR

dpkg-buildpackage (also builds the source *.tgz and *.diff files).


If this is the type of thing you require, have a look at some Debian
source code (unpack it with dpkg-source -x *.dsc) to see how to create
the source. The simplest (IMHO) package I know of (my package of
course!)  is diskless, as it is entirely perl and doesn't require
compilation.  Other good examples will also exist.

Also look up dh_make, from dh-make (automatically generate /debian
directory of source), and lintian (check package to see if it complies
with Debian policy). These might be an overkill for your application,
but I think a good idea all the same.


Or, if you want to get low-level, the building of the *.deb file comes
from "dpkg-deb -b". You must have a DEBIAN directory though containing
at least control.


I hope this helps...
-- 
Brian May <bam@debian.org>